


Ghost Machine (and a Weird Way to Make New Friends)

by Fionn_Sgeul



Series: Midnight Garden [4]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Episode: s01e03 Ghost Machine, Gen, Gwen Cooper and Gwyneth the Maid are the same person, Gwen and Owen bond in unusual circumstances, Gwen is older and wiser and may have gone slightly off her rocker at some point, Gwen isn't human, Is it justice or is it revenge?, Mention of rape/murder and suicide but no depiction of it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-07
Updated: 2016-08-14
Packaged: 2018-08-07 05:26:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7702426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fionn_Sgeul/pseuds/Fionn_Sgeul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was the start of a strange and unholy friendship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Maybe We Could Be Friends

**Author's Note:**

> You do need to have read the earlier parts of this series -- or at least the first one, Dancing in the Midnight Garden -- for everything in this story to make sense.
> 
> I feel this story is a bit vague in places. It's mostly where I was trying to avoid rehashing the original episode, but still. I'm not really happy with it.
> 
> Next instalment will be an original story.

Owen and Suzie pounded through the streets of Cardiff, Tosh calling directions through the comms in their ears. Jack had the SUV and was trying to cut off their quarry. Gwen had thrown herself into the chase with a frankly alarming level of enthusiasm and bounded up onto the rooftops. Her comm had fizzled out within minutes, so Owen had no idea whether she'd found the kid or not.

Then the kid came into view. Owen and Suzie were closing in, Jack catching up with them on foot from behind, when they were suddenly cut off by the descending metal grating that blocked off the Cardiff Market at closing time. Jack shouted at people to get it open again, but by the time it rolled back up, the kid in the hoodie was long gone.

And there was Gwen, standing in the middle of the street and staring at nothing, the kid's hoodie dangling from one hand.

Jack managed to shake Gwen out of her strange daze, but she didn't say anything. Her face was haunted and half obscured by her wild black hair. Her expression made Owen's hair stand on end. 

Tosh reported that Gwen now had the source of the signal they'd been tracking. A quick search of the hoodie's pockets turned up an alien gizmo with little glowing lights. Gwen at last started to talk, telling them that she'd tackled the kid to the ground only to be overtaken by the most intense vision she'd ever experienced — apparently visions were not a new thing to Gwen — of a frightened little boy wandering about alone. Jack concluded that the main button on the device must have been hit during the tumble, activating it and giving the boy a chance to escape.

They had what they'd come for, so they returned to the Hub.

*** 

A little investigation proved that Gwen's vision had actually happened, and that the lost little boy she'd seen had lived to grow up, which discounted the idea that the weird alien machine let you see ghosts. They also identified the kid who'd had the machine as one Bernie Harris. Locating him, though, proved a whole other matter.

"Can't you just do some magic mumbo-jumbo to track him down?" Owen asked Gwen, waving a frustrated hand. He, Gwen, and Tosh were leaning on a brick platform in a park, eating pasties after a fruitless day of searching. Jack and Suzie came trudging up to join them in time to hear Gwen's grumpy response.

"I'm not bloody clairvoyant, Owen. Not anymore."

"Anymore?" asked Tosh.

"I was when I was younger," Gwen admitted quietly, "from living on the Rift all my life. I had a sort of connection to it, and information just poured into my head whenever it pleased. But the connection made me a conduit, and that was dangerous, and not just to me. I got into a bad situation and had to break my connection to the Rift. I thought it would kill me, but it didn't." She was quiet for a moment, looking thoughtfully up at the sky. "I can't say I miss it. It near drove me mad."

"When you say a bad situation," said Jack, "is that when…?"

Gwen smiled at him, melancholy suddenly gone. "Yes, that was the day everything changed. The day I met the Doctor." She smiled up at the sky. "There was this alien race called the Gelth. They were non-corporeal, and they'd lost their home world in a terrible war. A few came through the Rift, asking for sanctuary for their people. The Doctor agreed — on a temporary basis, until he could find them a new home — and asked me to act as conduit so they could come through. I did, but then it turned out that it was conquest rather than sanctuary that they really had in mind."

"Isn't it always," said Jack darkly.

Gwen smiled wryly. "I had to close the Rift again, and to detach myself from it. You need a lot of energy to do that. This was 1869, and all the lights were gas-powered. I had the Doctor, his friend Rose, and Charles Dickens—"

_"Charles Dickens?"_ exclaimed several voices.

Gwen raised her voice and continued as if they hadn't spoken. "—I had them open all the gas valves and get out of the house. And then I struck a match. I really didn't expect to survive."

There was a moment of silence.

" _The_ Charles Dickens?" said Suzie.

" _The_ Charles Dickens," agreed Gwen with a smile.

"You have _got_ to tell us the full story to that one," said Jack.

Gwen laughed. "Tomorrow at dinner, the full story, I promise — the Doctor, Charles Dickens, and ghosts on Christmas Eve!"

***

Since their attempts to find Bernie Harris had thus far failed utterly, Jack decided to try a different angle and recreate what had happened to Gwen. Gwen wasn't keen, so Jack tossed the little machine to Owen instead. They were passing under a bridge on their way out of the park at the time, Owen lagging behind. So he was the only one who noticed that the machine was now lighting up the way it had the night before.

He called out to the others, but they were bickering and didn't hear. He dared to press the button.

When Owen came back to himself, Gwen was right in front of him, her big eyes wide and concerned. He was gasping, he could barely breathe. Words started tumbling out.

"She— she was so scared. I couldn't move, I couldn't move!" Gwen gently pried the machine out of his hands, and Owen dropped it like it burned him. "I couldn't help … I couldn't help." He tried to breathe deep, to calm himself, and not bloody _cry._

***

Describing what he'd seen happen to Lizzie Lewis was one of the hardest things Owen had ever had to do. It felt like it had happened to him rather than her. Her screams for help were playing on an endless loop in his head.

The others took it like any other witness statement and started analysing and discussing it. Except Gwen. Gwen stared at him like she understood, she _knew_ what he was feeling, how he was struggling to keep up a façade of normality, of antipathy.

Owen still wasn't sure what he thought of Gwen. He'd held the whole garden-gnome thing against her for a while, but it hadn't escaped his notice that she'd never put a gnome in any of his sections of the Hub. And it _had_ been funny, really, with sufficient distance — he still chuckled when he thought of Ianto and Tosh falling over each other to catch the gnome on wheels while Suzie loudly threatened to shoot it.

But that was only the whimsical side of Gwen. Owen couldn't forget the merciless, unflinching way she'd killed the two Plasmavores in the Hub. He couldn't forget the amount of power that had throbbed through the room in those moments. And he couldn't forget before she'd revealed herself, the feeling of knowing something dangerous was hiding in the building, watching them, and there being absolutely nothing they could do about it.

If it hadn't been for how gently she'd tended to the injured and still more than half panicked Ianto in the wake of his ordeal, Owen wasn't sure he could have acted normally in her presence.

Now that unexpected kindness was coming out again, and this time it was directed at him. Gwen sat next to him on the couch in the Hub, where he was going through files in a desperate attempt to distract himself.

"It's been forty-five years," she said in an undertone intended only for him. "Ed Morgan might still be alive."

Owen said nothing, but his hands clenched.

"Do you want to go after him?" she asked. It was a straightforward question, no judgement.

"I couldn't help her," Owen murmured hoarsely. "But maybe I could avenge her."

Gwen nodded slowly. "I will help," she said, and an eerie shiver ran up Owen's back. He turned to see the dark look Gwen was giving him, the spooky shimmer in her eyes. "I despise rapist-murderers. Only thing worse than them is child killers. If you want to go after him, I will back you to the hilt."

Owen took a shuddering breath. "Thanks."

***

It was the start of a strange and unholy friendship. When Owen argued for reopening the case of Lizzie Lewis's murder, Gwen stood at his shoulder and backed him up. And when Jack shot him down, she murmured in Owen's ear, "It's all right; we can do it ourselves." She smiled her knife-edged smile. "I prefer it this way, really."

"Right, because that isn't at all creepy," he muttered back.

They absconded with a pile of files to a quiet café and spent two hours and two cups of coffee each going through them. They found record of an Ed Morgan who'd been detained for questioning, but released.

"Got to be him," said Gwen. "You brought the phonebook with you?"

They started cross-referencing, Owen occasionally stealing a glance at Gwen and thinking it weird how normal and human she looked. And she was beautiful. He was tempted to ask her back to his place, but Jack had given the team very clear warnings of how dangerous sex with faeries could be.

"You get addicted to it, and then you either die of exhaustion or of pining away for it," he'd said.

Owen figured if there was one thing Jack knew about, it was sex, so for once he took his boss seriously.

By the time the café was closing up, they had a short list of possible Ed Morgans and an address for one that Owen was pretty sure had to be their guy. 

"Meet back here tomorrow morning?" suggested Owen out on the sidewalk, shrugging back into his jacket.

"Sure," said Gwen. "Good night." She turned away, only to run almost right into man who was staggering and definitely drunk. Gwen apologised, even though it had definitely been his fault, and he replied by grabbing her arm with one of the crudest propositions Owen had ever heard.

Now, Owen knew damn well that Gwen could and probably would nail this git's balls to a tree. But images of Ed Morgan were still burned into the backs of his eyelids, and he was responding before he had time to think about it.

"Listen, _mate,_ " he growled, striding up beside Gwen and shoving the man away with a firm hand on his chest. "Back off. And since you're too bloody pissed to so much as see straight, may I suggest you get off home before the lady decides to kill you by choking you to death on your own testicles." 

The man swore at him, but did in fact back off and head the other way. It suddenly occurred to Owen that Gwen might have taken offence at his interference. He dared look at her and found her regarding him with warm amusement.

"Choke him to death on his own testicles — I like that," she mused. Then she grinned the knife-edge grin. "I have a better idea, though." She started after the man.

"What are you going to do?" asked Owen, just a touch nervous. He was pretty sure he shouldn't allow their resident faerie to go off to murder and/or castrate people in the dead of night. Not that he could exactly stop her.

She turned back to him and beamed. "I'm going to follow him home, sneak into his house, and duct-tape all his keys and remote controls to the underside of his kitchen table." She pulled a roll of duct-tape out of a pocket and waved it. " _That_ 'll teach him to go out and get drunk off his head." 

Owen choked on unexpected laughter. "Oh, you are _good._ "

Gwen winked. "I know I am. See you tomorrow."


	2. Justice and Revenge

Gwen was waiting for him in the café the next day, looking pleased with herself.

"Have fun last night?" asked Owen as he slid into the chair across from her.

She grinned. "Oh, it was too easy. He didn't even remember to lock up — I just went in through the front door. He went straight to bed and passed out, so I went and found his keys and his remote controls and taped them to the underside of his coffee table. I thought of hiding his wallet and mobile too, but he was pretty much lying on top of them and I didn't fancy putting in the effort."

"So what happened?" asked Owen.

"Well, I didn't fancy hanging about in his flat all night, so I went off and came back this morning. Had to wait a while before he got up, but it was worth it." She sniggered into her coffee. "First he went looking for the remote to the telly, hungover and half asleep. He couldn't find it. He couldn't find any of his remotes. Pretty soon he was tearing his sofa apart and swearing up a storm. And then he realised what time it was and that he was going to have to leave for work. But he couldn't find his car keys."

They both chuckled, and Gwen went on. "It got to the point where he was pulling on his hair and near tears. I eventually took pity on him and put his keys in his shoe, where he found them when he put it on. But his remotes are still stuck to the underside of his coffee table."

Owen laughed aloud at that.

His good mood evaporated when they went to find Ed Morgan. He flipped through his large collection of false identification and decided they'd be gas inspectors. But then Gwen pointed out that the only false ID she had so far was for the police.

"That's okay," said Owen. "Just follow in after me. Chances are he won't ask."

But Gwen was shaking her head. "No, I've a better idea." She smiled. "I've what you might call past experience at frightening murderers into confession." She vanished into thin air. Owen stared. He'd never seen her do it up close before. "Just leave your door open a minute after you get out, pretend you're checking addresses," her voice said from nowhere. "I'll go out that side, just in case someone's watching." 

Getting in was easy. Owen flashed his ID and gave his practiced spiel about a reported gas leak. He could feel Gwen pressed right up against his back as he went through the door. Then she patted his shoulder and slipped off into the house.

What shocked Owen was how _normal_ Ed Morgan seemed — a perfectly ordinary, harmless old man. And yet this man — and he was sure, now that he'd seen his face — this man had raped and killed an innocent seventeen-year-old girl.

So he sat the old man down and started talking about the past, reminding him of Mabel Lewis and her only child, little Lizzie Lewis. He watched Morgan's hands twitch with growing tension, watched the sweat break out on his upper lip. Yes, this was the man. 

Owen described the scene in a whisper, trying to trigger a confession, a damning reaction … trying to make Ed Morgan _sweat_. He repeated Lizzie's words, her pleas, and watched Morgan's hands curl into fists.

And then Morgan was screaming for him to get out, and Owen went without fuss, knowing that he had only been round one. Knowing what would be waiting for Morgan once he was gone.

Though Morgan did make one very interesting comment… "I've told you before, you'll get nothing from me!"

He was only a few steps out the door when the implications started to sink in. _"Before."_ Had someone else been after Morgan for what he'd done?

And then he looked up and saw Bernie Harris.

***

Owen bloody hated it when they ran. By the time he cornered Bernie at a locked door in someone's back garden, he could barely speak he was wheezing so hard. He dragged the nineteen-year-old straight to the nearest pub, feeling that he deserved a drink after that. He called the rest of the team on the comms, but Gwen's was on the fritz more often than not, so he just had to hope she'd track him down somehow.

So Owen was surprised when Gwen got to the pub first. "How did you find me?" he asked as she came and took the seat by the window.

She tapped her earpiece. "It's still receiving, just not sending. I heard you give the address." A brief, dark smile. "I'll tell you how the business went later."

Jack and the others joined them less than a minute later, and it wasn't long before they had the whole story out of Bernie … and the other half of the device. The other half, rather than showing echoes of the past, showed possible futures. And, as he admitted to Gwen, it had shown Bernie his own death.

Gwen told Owen about it as they drove back to the Hub. She was troubled. "He's a young fool, but I don't think he really means any harm. Can't help feeling sorry for him."

"Never mind him for the moment," said Owen. "What about Morgan?"

Gwen's expression changed into something Owen couldn't read. Was it satisfaction, or pity, or some strange mix of the two? 

"I told you before: I have past experience with murderers. You can usually divide them into three types: the ones who don't care and never will, the ones who feel justified in their actions but regret that they were necessary, and the ones who are haunted the rest of their lives by it." She turned to look at him, eyes dark. "Ed Morgan is the latter. When I appeared to him as an angel of judgement and confronted him with his crime, he fell apart and blubbered at my feet. He _asked_ for punishment, for atonement. He's a broken man."

She looked out the window, but Owen had the feeling she was seeing something much farther away. When she spoke, her voice was strangely whispery and distant. "He'll die soon. I could feel it."

A shiver ran down Owen's spine. Sometimes you could easily mistake Gwen Cooper for a human being, but sometimes you could feel in your bones that she was something else, something Other.

Suddenly she was back to her usual self, directing a smirk at him. "He thinks you're an angel of judgement as well, in case you come across him again. I told him you were his first opportunity to confess."

Owen chuckled hoarsely at that. "Think that's the first time anyone's ever called me an angel. Huh. Angel of judgement. Not sure how I feel about that."

Gwen ran a piercing gaze over him. "Oh, I don't know. I don't think you'd be half bad."

Owen gave her a startled look and thought that, in some bizarre way, that was one of the nicest things anyone had ever said to him.

***

Owen went out for a drink with Tosh after work, and she told him that she had tracked down Ed Morgan. Owen admitted that he and Gwen had done likewise, that they'd paid him a visit and put the fear of God into him — literally. (And wasn't that ironic, he thought to himself, considering what Gwen was, and the sort of person _he_ was?)

Tosh told him what she'd found in Morgan's medical records — agoraphobia, paranoia, depression, and suicide attempts. Confirmation of what Gwen had told him about Morgan's state of mind, basically. Owen felt a little better that Morgan had not, in fact, got off scot free all these years, even if his only punishment had been self-inflicted.

On the other hand, self-inflicted punishments were usually the worst. Owen knew that first-hand.

Tosh worried aloud of what Jack might do if he found out about Owen and Gwen's foray into vigilantism. Owen replied pointedly that no one was going to tell him. And they wouldn't, he was sure. Tosh was fonder of him than he deserved, and Gwen clearly made a habit of retribution like this. And what could Jack do about her?

Owen and Tosh then discussed a comment Morgan had made to him as he left: "I've told you before, you'll get nothing from me…" Something about it bothered Owen. He repeated the remark to Tosh, and she said, "Told whom?"

And it all suddenly came clear.

"Shit. Bloody Bernie Harris."

***

"Gwen, if you're getting this, phone me as soon as you can." Owen and Tosh were outside the club now, leaning against his car. He was hoping Gwen's comm was still receiving.

"Owen?" said Jack's voice through the comm. "Something wrong?"

"Maybe, maybe not. Gwen will know." He did _not_ want to discuss this with Jack if he could avoid it.

"Can I help?"

"Not unless you've suddenly decided to become psychic."

Owen's phone went off in his pocket. He switched off his comm and nearly fumbled the phone as he pulled it out of his pocket. He sighed with relief to hear Gwen's voice on the other end.

"Where are you?" he demanded.

"Bernie's place. I'm using his landline."

Owen sagged against the car. The girl's timing couldn't be better. "He was trying to blackmail Morgan. I think that's how he gets himself killed."

"Ah," she said. "That would fit. But I'd be surprised if Morgan tried any such thing after this morning."

"Still," said Owen. "Keep an eye on the little git?"

Gwen's voice was warm and fond. "Will do, Owen."

Then Owen went back to the comm and called Jack. "Jack? Gwen just called. It was something, but I think we've got it under control."

"Care to be more specific?" said Jack with a hint of suspicion.

Owen, fortunately, had already formulated a cover story. "It was something Bernie said when I caught him. He thought Ed Morgan had sent me after him, and I just realised that he might have been blackmailing Morgan, if he saw the same vision I did. And then I thought that's probably what he saw getting him killed in the near future."

Jack was quiet for a moment. "Sounds likely. Where does Gwen come into this?"

"She went to talk to Bernie — she was feeling sorry for him and wanted to tell him that he only saw a possible future, not something set in stone. I got her to ask him, and he confirmed he'd tried blackmail."

"Do we need to get over there?" asked Jack.

"Nah, Gwen says she'll deal with it. She promises no violence," Owen added, which she hadn't, but he was sure there wouldn't be any nonetheless. Gwen had better ways of dealing with trouble.

"Uh-huh," said Jack, and Owen could tell by his boss's voice that Jack knew he was holding back. "And tomorrow, I'll buy you a drink and get you to tell me what _really_ happened today."

Owen winced.

***

The next day, Tosh found a report that Ed Morgan had committed suicide. Gwen was unsurprised. 

"I rather thought he would. We had a long talk. It was probably the best thing for him; he was never going to forgive himself for what he'd done." She stared pensively into the middle distance. "He'd been suffering for forty-five years; it was time to end it."

"What did you do?" asked Jack, stern and hard.

Gwen gave him a faint smile. "I told you, we talked. I may have led him to believe that I was an angel of judgement, and we talked about absolution and justice. He was peaceful when I left. Sometimes that means they've made a decision." Her face hardened. "I don't regret what I did, Jack Harkness, and I never will. I brought an end to that old man's suffering, got some kind of justice for that poor girl," here she looked at Owen, acknowledging his part, "and saved a silly young lad's life. And convinced him it was saved, too. He cried." She stood tall and stared Jack down. "I think it all ended as well as it could, considering."

Jack sighed and deflated. "You may be right. But next time I'd appreciate it if you didn't go behind my back. _And_ ," he looked at Owen, "told me the full story."

"Buy me that drink first," said Owen. 

Jack rolled his eyes and turned to Gwen, picking up his coat. "You owe us a story too, it seems to me. Charles Dickens and the Alien Invasion?"

She laughed. "So I do. All right then, drinks and story time!"

So the whole of Torchwood went out for lunch. And as they went, Gwen and Owen shared a grin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the actual episode, Tosh says that Ed Morgan has claustrophobia, but then goes on to say that he hardly ever leaves his house. That sounds more like agoraphobia -- the fear of open and/or crowded places -- to me, so I changed it.


End file.
